Track of the Day: 'Buttercup'

If there's a voice out there that can better express the push-and-pull erosion of a love/hate relationship than Lucinda Williams', I have yet to hear it. The first single off her brand new album Blessed, "Buttercup" is a jagged, scornful first-person narrative from a woman who's had it up to here with her man?s bullshit and inability to just grow up.

Who knows, maybe Williams' narrator isn't the easiest person to get along with either, but at some point the act grows old and making the puppy dog face doesn't help to heal over the old scars. "You might have a beautiful mouth, you might have beautiful eyes, but sooner or later it all goes south when you tell too many lies," she sings in an unsteady voice dripping with emotional weariness. She knows there may be regrets down the road, and definitely some lonely nights, but it's time for him to go make somebody else his collateral damage.